20:21 Vision: Twentieth-Century Lessons for the Twenty-first Century

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003)

As The Economist’s editor in chief for the past decade, Bill Emmott has had a prime vantage point from which to observe the pageant of world events. In his new book 20:21 Vision: Twentieth-Century Lessons for the Twenty-first Century, he combines journalistic insights with historical analysis to show how the challenges of the last hundred years can shed light on those to come in the next hundred. Though the horrific alternatives to capitalism and democracy ? fascism and communism ? have been soundly discredited, Emmott warns that the sources of dissatisfaction that spawned them remain. He takes a position of “paranoid optimism,” suggesting that American predominance and the spread of democratic capitalism can persist in the face of growing opposition. Join us for a penetrating discussion of these important trends.